Beneath the Imperfections
by Mnemosyne's Elegy
Summary: This year Erza intends to have The Best Birthday Ever, and woe betide anyone who gets in her way.


**Note: Well, it's that time of year again: my favorite (only) sister's birthday. She requested another story, this time being clear that it needed to be Erza-centric and contain humor. (Bah.) We can all thank her because she's the one who introduced me to FT and harassed me until I watched the anime, so without her I never would have started writing for this fandom. Thanks, sis.**

* * *

 **Dearest darling sister,**

 **You know that super sweet intro I wrote for your birthday story last year? Sorry, but...**

 _ **Roses are red,**_

 _ **Violets are blue,**_

 _ **This year I'm too lazy**_

 _ **To write poems for you.**_

 **...To be fair, you said you wanted humor.**

* * *

Erza woke up practically vibrating with excitement. She had been planning today out for weeks, and it was _finally_ here. There was no way the guild could possibly mess it up—she had made sure of it. She had given them a list of all the presents she wanted, drawn a diagram of exactly how she wanted the hall decorated, pre-ordered the cake and given them the pickup information, and given them an exhaustive lecture about what they absolutely could not do today. Gray would not strip, Cana would not get drunk, Natsu would not wreck anything, Loke would not flirt excessively, Juvia would not make it rain no matter what Gray said, and there would be absolutely _no_ fighting.

Erza's birthday was going to be picture-perfect this year, and she rather thought that she had scared everyone enough that they would make sure of it.

She pulled her clothes on in record time, tugged a brush through her hair, and halfheartedly swiped her toothbrush along her teeth. Then she was out the door, almost jogging down the street in her hurry. She only got one day, after all, and she intended to make the most of it.

Bursting into the guild, she wore a beaming smile and…

The lights were off.

She stared blankly into the darkness for a few moments before deciding that her friends must have decided to throw her a surprise party. That hadn't been part of the plan she had written out for them, but maybe they were just trying to do something a little special. And surprise parties were fun! She should have thought to put that on the list. But now she didn't have to, because her friends had actually come up with a good idea for once. How sweet of them.

A pleased smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she flipped on the light and…

There was no one.

She glanced around the empty room with a faint frown. The benches sat vacant, the tables were cleared off and bare, and none of the decorations she had designed were up. The lack of decorations was a big letdown. But maybe that was part of the surprise? To trick her into thinking that there was no party? And surely her friends were just hiding, waiting to surprise her. She was impressed at how quiet they were being.

"I'm here!" she announced happily, her voice echoing through the empty hall.

Silence.

"Guys? Hello? I know you're in here…"

Her frown returning, Erza crept inside and poked around a bit, looking under tables and behind doors. After a thorough search, she came to the conclusion that the building was, in fact, empty.

Where was everyone? Maybe they were setting the party up somewhere else? She'd prefer it to be at the guild, but maybe she could live with a change of venue.

The clock on the wall indicated that it was 5:45 a.m., and she suddenly wondered if her friends had overslept. She should have thought to include a starting time. In fact, she probably should have written an hour-by-hour agenda to make sure that everything went according to plan.

Letting her breath out in a huff, Erza left the building and started down the empty street, squinting in the gray predawn light. Well, no one was going to be sleeping in today. Lazy fools. If they were going to sleep so late then she would just have to wake them up herself.

She chose to start with Lucy. At first she considered just knocking, but then she wondered if it would be rude to go pounding on the door if Lucy was asleep. Instead, Erza decided to take Natsu's favorite approach of going through the window.

She wriggled inside without too much difficulty, crept into Lucy's bedroom, and tiptoed over to her sleeping friend's bed.

"Lucy," she whispered.

Lucy mumbled something in her sleep and twitched slightly, but her eyes remained closed and her breathing even. Well, this was just unacceptable.

"Lucy!" Erza said a little louder.

"Go away, Natsu," Lucy mumbled.

"I'm extremely offended that you have mistaken me for Natsu."

"Huh?" Lucy finally pulled herself out of her stupor and blinked at Erza blearily for a moment before yelping and jerking backwards, tumbling to the floor in a tangle of sheets and flailing limbs.

"Are you alright?" Erza asked in concern, crawling up onto the bed so that she could peer over the other side.

Lucy stared back at her, eyes wide. "Erza? What…? What are you doing here?"

"You should be honored," Erza replied, settling herself more comfortably on the bed. "I've decided to let you be the first."

"The first? The first what?"

Erza frowned and gave Lucy a pointed look. It didn't seem to clear up the sleepy blonde's confusion any.

"Surely you haven't forgotten what today is…?"

"Huh?" Lucy frowned slightly, her brows knitting in concentration, but then her eyes lit up in understanding. "Oh! Happy birthday, Erza!"

"Thank you," Erza said with a pleased smile.

"I'm not late to the party, am I? I could have sworn…" Lucy trailed off and squinted at the clock on the far wall. For several long seconds she stared at it in silence, and then turned to Erza again. "It's…not even six yet?"

Erza nodded her agreement. "Yes, I thought it must be a mistake that you overslept, so I came to get you. It's alright, I won't hold it against you this time."

"Overslept…? Erza, it's not even six. Why don't you just go back to sleep for a couple hours and then–"

"Back to sleep?" Erza repeated indignantly. "I only get twenty-four hours, and you all have already wasted nearly six of them. This is unacceptable."

"Um, Erza–"

"The hall isn't even decorated yet! No one is awake! I have no patience for procrastinators."

"Uh, well, Mira suggested that we didn't decorate last night because she thought you might show up early, before the rest of us got there. We just didn't think it would be _this_ early…"

Erza huffed out a breath and crossed her arms. "Well now you have to do all of that since you didn't do it yesterday. Come on, it's time to get up. We need to go wake everyone else up."

"But–" Lucy wilted under Erza's glare and nodded. "Okay, okay, let me just get dressed first."

By the time Lucy finished getting ready, Erza had planned out their course of action.

"Are you ready? Great. We're going to start with Gray."

"Gray? Why Gray?"

"Why not Gray? He might not be the most responsible person, but I trust him to get things done more than I trust Natsu…"

Lucy couldn't argue with that, so the girls headed for Gray's apartment, Erza radiating anticipation and excitement again while Lucy stifled yawns. When Lucy made to knock on the door, Erza shook her head.

"He's sleeping," she explained. "It wouldn't be nice to wake him up with knocking."

Lucy stared at her. "But we're going to wake him up anyway…"

"True. But we'll go in through the window and do it that way. At least that way he can't ignore us."

"This is why you came in my window? Is that really better than knocking?"

Erza just shrugged. "It's harder to ignore someone by your bed than it is to ignore someone at your door."

"…You have a devious mind."

"Thank you."

Erza led the way, sliding the window open and breaking into the apartment with ease. She was a bit more confident now that she had experience invading Lucy's place. Trusting Lucy to follow her, Erza headed for Gray's bed.

"Gray."

"Five more minutes," the ice mage slurred.

"No. Get up."

"Stupid," he mumbled. Erza's eyes widened in indignation and she opened her mouth to chew him out, but then he added, "Thirteen ice cream cones and we'll call it a deal."

Erza frowned at him for a moment, before deciding that he was just talking in his sleep. Half of her was extremely curious about whatever odd things he was dreaming, but she mostly wanted to get the show on the road already.

"I'd rather dig my eyes out with a spork," Gray muttered, face scrunching up as he rolled over.

Lucy started snickering, but Erza just rolled her eyes and shook Gray.

"That sounds unnecessarily violent," she said as he flipped over to blink at her blankly. She was a little disappointed by his lack of startle reaction, but she supposed that seeing Lucy's was good enough. "You're very articulate in your sleep."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he mumbled, yawning widely. Then he frowned suddenly, narrowing his eyes at Erza. "Oh hell. Whatever it was, I didn't do it. It was Natsu."

Lucy burst out laughing again, and he looked slowly between her and Erza before pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes.

"Why are you here?" he asked with a groan. "Go away and–" He broke off and dropped his hands to blink at Erza again. "Happy birthday."

Erza smiled proudly. "Who would have thought it? You have a better memory than Lucy. I had to give her hints."

"To be fair, I was still half asleep," Lucy grumbled.

"I'm pretty sure I'm still nine-tenths asleep," Gray said, yawning again. "What time is it, anyway? It can't be– What the hell? It's six o'clock in the morning!"

"And time's a wasting!" Erza agreed brightly. "Rise and shine!"

"Go away," Gray groaned, flopping back over and pulling his pillow over his head.

Erza was having none of that. "Seriously?" she asked, yanking the covers off him and pulling away the pillow for good measure.

He didn't even move. He just remained perfectly still, eyes closed, one arm thrown carelessly above his head. Then he sighed slightly, and Erza could have sworn she heard the word 'spork' embedded in the sound.

"He couldn't have possibly fallen asleep again that quickly." She eyed him suspiciously, pretty sure he was just messing with her.

"I don't know, if I was in bed then I'd probably fall back asleep too," Lucy muttered.

"You guys are so lazy," Erza said, rolling her eyes. "Gray, get up!"

"Huh?" He cracked one eye open and stared at her uncomprehendingly. "What the hell are you doing in my apartment? It was Natsu, I swear I tried to stop him."

"Tried to stop him from doing what?" Lucy asked, coughing to hide a laugh.

"Um… I'm trying to figure out if that actually happened or it was just a dream. Actually, I don't think I've ever had a spork in my life, and it's physically impossible to fit that many avocados in your mouth. Must've been a dream. But whatever you're here for, it was Natsu's fault."

Lucy whistled. "I wish I could see your dreams, Gray."

"I wish I could be having them," Gray muttered, closing his eye again and yawning widely. "Why are you here? What time is it? Why am I awake?"

"Am I the only one getting a sense of déjà vu?" Lucy asked with a laugh.

"…I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I already woke you up five minutes ago," Erza said impatiently. "You went back to sleep."

Gray blinked at her sleepily, face scrunching up in bewilderment. Erza wasn't sure she'd ever seen him so forlorn and disoriented before.

"Uh… Really?" He rubbed at his eyes with clumsy, haphazard motions. "Oh, happy birthday, Erza."

"Wow, you remembered twice," Erza said, impressed despite herself. "Given how completely out of it you are, that's rather impressive."

"Pretty sure I dreamt you tried to dismember me for forgetting," he mumbled. "What time is it, anyway?"

"Time to get up," Erza said.

"Just after six," Lucy supplied.

"Six? Seriously?" Gray groaned. "Can't you wait a couple hours, Erza? I was up until nearly three trying to wrap your gifts exactly like the diagram you gave us. I wasted a crap-ton of wrapping paper. Seriously, who the hell actually wraps stuff like that? That's what freaking bags are for. You just dump the stuff in and crumple paper on top. Or, like, just wrap it and not worry about it being perfect. Who cares if the edges are wonky or the paper's a little crinkled?"

"I do," Erza said seriously. "I hope you did a good job."

"Yeah, thanks to four hours of wasted time, three papercuts, two rolls of wrapping paper, and not at all to that stupid diagram."

"It was a very nice diagram."

"Uh-huh. Can't you wait a few hours?"

Erza frowned and braced her hands on her hips. "Are you saying that you don't want me to have the perfect birthday?"

"Huh? No, I–"

"That's really mean, Gray."

"But–"

"Friends shouldn't do that to friends."

"Oh, for the love of– I'm up, I'm up." He dragged himself out of bed, swaying slightly, eyelids drooping. "What do you want me to do?"

Erza smiled brightly, satisfied that things were back on track. "I need you to go wake everyone else up and then make sure that all the party plans go perfectly."

"…Seriously?"

"Seriously. I don't see what the problem is. It should be extremely easy, you know. I even drew you up that wonderful diagram, so all you have to do is follow it."

"What, the diagram that looks like a hyperactive two-year-old drew it while on a boat in the middle of a storm?" Gray grumbled, burying his face in his hands. "Awesome. Yeah, that'll be a piece of cake."

"Excuse me?" Erza demanded, her smile immediately morphing into a scowl.

"What?" Gray dropped his hands to stare at her blankly. Taking in her outraged expression, he frowned in confusion. "What did I say?"

"You made fun of her drawing!" Lucy hissed in a half-whisper.

Gray stared at her. "I did? I'm not awake enough to be having this conversation right now. Let's just pretend that I never opened my mouth, yeah?"

Erza hesitated for a few moments before nodding. No point wrecking her special day by being upset over something Gray had said while he was still half asleep. He probably didn't mean it anyway, given that she had worked very hard on that drawing and it had turned out very well.

Then a thought occurred to her and she narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Your dream didn't have anything to do with this, did it? About what you'd rather dig your eyes out with a spork than do?"

"Huh? Where the hell are you getting this stuff from? That sounds unnecessarily violent."

Erza frowned, wondering if he was just messing with her after all, but his eyes showed nothing but puzzled sincerity. She hoped that his brain woke up soon.

"Hm. Well, hurry up and get going. I'm ready for the party already."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm going," Gray said with a sigh as he headed for the door.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Lucy called after him.

He turned back around with a frown, dark eyes glinting with uncertainty. "What? I did say happy birthday, didn't I?"

"Yes," Erza agreed. "Twice."

"Then what–?"

"Clothes, Gray."

He looked down at himself and nodded slowly as he realized that he had rolled out of bed in nothing but his boxers. "Clothes. Right. That would be a good idea. I'll get dressed then."

"You do that," Erza said. Her eyes hardened as she added, "Remember, no stripping today. And make sure Natsu doesn't wreck anything. And that Cana–"

"I got it, I got it," Gray said, rolling his eyes as he headed for his bathroom. "Don't worry, we have an entire file folder of what we should and shouldn't do today. Hopefully your step-by-step instructions will be enough to make sure everything goes right."

"I want it to be perfect."

Gray glanced back at her, eyes softening and a grin tugging at the very corners of his lips. "Yeah, yeah, we'll do our best."

"Just hurry up so we can get going," Lucy said.

Erza tilted her head and studied the blonde, puzzled. "You aren't going with him."

"I'm…not? What did you want me to do then?"

"You're going to come with me, of course," Erza explained patiently. "It'll take time to set everything up, and it would be rude to leave the birthday girl all by herself. We're going to hang out."

"How come _she_ gets to hang out instead of do all the work?" Gray complained. "I can–"

"We're going to do Girl Stuff."

"…Never mind. You guys have fun with that."

"What 'girl stuff'?" Lucy asked.

"This is the one day a year I get to do whatever I want," Erza said with a shrug. "Today I feel like doing girly things."

"Um… Okay."

"Look, just keep her occupied for a few hours while we set things up," Gray grumbled.

"Hours?" Erza asked, dismayed. She didn't want to wait hours.

"To be safe. I don't doubt that Natsu will mess something up, and then we'll have to fix it. Give us some time." With that, Gray stepped into the bathroom and shut the door behind him just a little too loudly.

Erza stared at the closed door for a moment. "Hm. He seems annoyed."

"I think he's just tired," Lucy said, starting for the bedroom door. "Why don't we go?"

"Where are you going?"

"Um… Out?"

"Window, Lucy."

"But the door is right–"

"The window is already open. Come on."

"How could I possibly argue with that logic?" Lucy mumbled.

Still, she obediently followed as the requip mage climbed back through the window. Erza paused in the street and looked around, considering her options.

"I think we should go gift shopping," she said finally, her eyes lighting up at the prospect.

"But we already got you your gifts. You gave us an entire list, remember?"

"It's alright. I'm going to get a gift for myself."

"Uh… I don't think it works like that…"

"Oh, well you could always buy it for me instead then," Erza said brightly, starting down the street with a new spring in her step.

Lucy's face paled, and Erza could have sworn she heard her friend muttering something about 'rent' and 'eviction'. But she was probably imagining it. Wow, she was so lucky to have great friends like Lucy.

"Erza?" Lucy said after a moment. "Do you think that the stores are even open yet? It's really early and I don't think they are…"

"Well, they should be. And if not, I'll just have to go hunt down the shopkeepers and wake them up. What are they doing, sleeping in today? Don't they realize it's my birthday?"

Honestly, it was like the whole city was conspiring against her. But she really did want to go shopping and her plan seemed like a good one, so she was willing to overlook the blunder.

Lucy, on the other hand, did not seem satisfied by the plan. "Uh, that's probably not a great idea."

"Why not?"

"Why…? Erza, how about we do something else for a couple hours and then we can go shopping once the stores open? Was there something else you wanted to do?"

Erza frowned thoughtfully. What she _wanted_ to do was go shopping and find herself an awesome gift. Technically she had picked out _all_ of her gifts, but one more wouldn't hurt.

But true, having to run around waking everyone up didn't seem like a whole lot of fun. Maybe Lucy was right and there was something better they could do while they waited. But what…?

"Lucy!" Erza turned to her friend, eyes shining with a strange combination of excitement and determination. "We should paint each other's nails."

Lucy stared at her blankly. Whatever she had been expecting Erza to say, it was obviously not that. "Oh, um, sure. I have nail polish at my apartment, if you want."

Erza nodded and set off back to Lucy's apartment. On the way, she cheerfully rambled about how awesomely perfect everything was going to be and how much fun painting their nails would be and what she thought she might buy once the stores opened. She was pretty sure that Lucy's glazed expression belied her attentiveness, and not that that it indicated that she was still half asleep and zoning out.

Since Lucy was such a good listener, Erza chatted away happily until the blonde let them into her apartment—through the door this time—and brought out an impressive array of nail polish bottles. Erza gaped at them in awe. It was like Lucy had an entire rainbow in here! Erza didn't often bother with girly-girl activities such as these since she was too busy frightening misbehaving mages into submission and beating up enemies, but every once in a while they caught her fancy.

"I want to paint yours first," she declared, rummaging through all the bottles to get a closer look and generally make a mess of things. "What color do you want?"

Lucy winced at the destruction of her organized rows of polish, but didn't comment. "I was thinking maybe–"

"Yellow!" Erza interrupted, snatching up a bottle filled with the most amazingly bright yellow she had ever seen. "I like it. I think it will look nice with your hair."

"Uh, actually–"

"What, do you not like it? I think it will work beautifully."

Lucy hesitated, but then sighed and gave in. "Yeah, sure. It's…great."

Erza smiled brightly. Let it not be said that she didn't have impeccable taste. Twisting off the lid, she dipped the brush into the polish and grabbed one of Lucy's hands.

And quickly discovered that it was harder than it looked.

"Um, you do realize that you're supposed to keep the polish on the nail, right?" Lucy asked cautiously as she frowned down at the yellow smears staining her cuticle and half her finger.

"I didn't realize it would be this hard," Erza muttered, scowling down at the offending polish.

"It's alright. Practice makes perfect."

"It's…abstract." Erza grinned, qualms immediately laid to rest. "Why should you conform to the masses? You're too unique for that. And also, abstract art is great."

"Uh… You know what, knock yourself out."

Erza carefully painted the rest of Lucy's nails, the tip of her tongue just barely poking out of her mouth in concentration as she focused on trying to apply the polish smoothly and on the nail only. And every once in a while, she'd run a streak of yellow tastefully over the tip of one of Lucy's fingers. She did love abstract art.

Still, it needed something else. Erza sat back on her heels and frowned at Lucy's perfectly yellow nails, wondering what else she could do to elevate her masterpiece.

"Polka dots!" she said suddenly, pleased with her brilliance. She began assembling a wide selection of nice colors to use. "You need polka dots."

"Are you really sure that–?"

"Yes."

"But–"

"It's my birthday."

Lucy couldn't really argue with that, so she just sighed. "At least wait for them to dry first."

"Dry?"

"Yeah, or else the colors will run together. You wait for the first layer to dry before putting more polish on."

"I don't want to wait."

"It won't take very long, and you spent enough time putting on the first coat that they should be almost dry by now."

Erza sighed heavily but decided to wait. Lucy was the expert, and Erza wanted to do a good job. She stared at her friend's nails intently, trying to will them to dry faster. The seconds dragged on, turning into minutes that turned into hours that turned into an eternity.

"Okay," she said finally, losing patience, "I'm going to start."

"Erza, it's been like five seconds…"

"Really?" Erza frowned at Lucy and then up at the clock. "Huh. I could've sworn it was longer."

After another couple more minutes of impatient fidgeting, Lucy finally gave Erza the go-ahead to get started. Erza wasted no time, grabbing a bottle at random and immediately beginning to apply colorful, roundish splotches. She happily painted dot after dot, going through nearly a dozen different colors in the process. The number of colors used was directly proportional to the beauty of abstract art, so she made sure to use as many as she possibly could, although she was careful not to get too overexcited and obliterate that beautiful yellow undercoat.

When she finally decided that she had done enough, she sat back to admire her handiwork. Lucy gaped down in awe, her wide eyes filled with wonder at the beauty of Erza's work.

"How…pretty…" she said faintly.

Aw, she was so overcome with the splendor that she could barely even find words to express her amazement and gratitude. How sweet.

"Thank you," Erza said, pleased. Then she squinted at Lucy's nails, wondering what it was that they reminded her of… "Oh! I'm going to call it 'clown chic'," she said, excited to have created her own style. It reminded her a little of spotted clown costumes.

"Clown…chic…"

"But you're a very pretty clown," Erza reassured Lucy. "Not like those creepy ones."

"Thanks… I think."

"And now you can do my nails!"

Lucy shook her head to pull herself out of her awestruck daze, and tore her eyes away from Erza's masterpiece to look at the artist herself. "Um, sure. Let's just wait a minute for my nails to dry. While we wait, what do you want me to do for yours?"

Erza considered it for a long moment. "Pink."

"Pink?"

"Yes!" Erza smiled brightly. "Really bright pink! With pink flowers. Maybe a few different shades of pink. And sparkles. Do you have sparkly polish? I want sparkles. Pink sparkles."

Lucy stared at her for a second and then coughed lightly. "Um, if we put pink flowers on top of more pink then they wouldn't show up well."

"I'm sure you can make it work. You _can_ do flowers, can't you?"

"Yeah, sure, but… That just sounds like an awful lot of pink…"

"Exactly."

Lucy stayed silent. She looked down at her nails and then back up at Erza. Erza stared back patiently, or as patiently as her excitement would allow her to. Lucy opened her mouth, closed it again, sighed.

"Okay, do you trust me?" she asked finally.

"Of course," Erza said immediately. Then her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Wait, why?"

"Look, let me just try something with your nails, and if you don't like it then I can take the polish off and dump pink glitter on them."

Erza's immediate impulse was to say no. It was her birthday, after all, and things should be done exactly the way she wanted them. But Lucy was the expert here, and maybe Erza would trust her on this one.

So she submitted meekly, watching like a hawk as Lucy carefully slathered pale pink polish on her nails—how she could keep the polish completely on the nail was beyond Erza's comprehension—then waited for a few minutes as it dried. When Erza ever-so-subtly hinted that it wasn't nearly as pink as she had been thinking, Lucy just waved her off and told her to wait.

In the end, the subtle pink with cute red flowers and thin black accents wasn't what Erza had had in mind, but it was pretty.

"It's not that pink," she said as she studied them, "but it's actually quite nice. I don't know how you managed to do all those little flowers… Just staying inside the lines is hard enough."

Lucy smiled tiredly. "A lot of practice. It's easier to do it on someone else's nails than on your own. So, do they pass inspection or do I need to start over?"

"I think they'll do. They're very sophisticated." Then Erza remembered her manners. "They're almost as nice as yours."

Lucy darted an admiring glance down at her own nails. "Wow. Thanks."

"You're welcome. Now, do you think the shops are open yet?"

"Yeah, we spent a lot of time on this. I guess we can go now if you want."

"Of course I want! Let's go!"

It was still early enough that the streets weren't as crowded as they would be in a few hours, but the stores were open and that was what counted. Erza dragged Lucy from shop to shop, in search of the perfect gift. It was something of a challenge since she'd already had her friends buy her all her perfect gifts, but it was okay because she was mostly excited about window shopping with Lucy. As it turned out, shopping with another girl was actually quite fun.

Of course, she had to take a break midway through to get breakfast, seeing as she hadn't eaten anything today. Overriding Lucy's cautious suggestions, Erza ducked into the bakery and happily ordered a strawberry cupcake.

"But we'll be eating strawberry cake soon," Lucy protested.

"We should have _already_ been eating it, but you all were slow and now I'm hungry."

"If you just waited–"

"More waiting? It's my birthday, Lucy."

Lucy gave up and let Erza eat her cupcake in peace, although she declined getting one of her own. Well, if she wanted to starve while they were waiting on the guild then good on her.

The girls wandered around for a while longer until Erza found a nice sword—one could never have too many swords—and selected it for her gift to herself. She even paid for it herself, much to Lucy's relief.

Despite her annoyance with the guild's slowness, Erza had to admit that she was satisfied with how things had turned out. It had actually been fun to hang out with Lucy for a little while; they didn't do it nearly as often as they should.

But now she was ready for her party.

"Do you think they're ready yet?" she asked, darting another glance in the general direction of the guild. How long could it possibly take them to set things up when she'd given them such explicit and detailed instructions?

Lucy hesitated but then shrugged. "I'd think they should be. I guess we can head over. If they haven't finished by now then they never will."

Erza was already halfway down the street, so she didn't bother responding to that last pessimistic statement. She rushed to the guild, practically bouncing in excitement, and paused just outside. Glancing back to make sure that Lucy had kept up, she grinned at her friend, eyes sparkling.

"Moment of truth."

Lucy's eyes softened and the corners of her lips quirked upwards. "Yeah. Happy birthday, Erza."

"Thanks. And thanks for hanging out with me. It was fun."

"Yeah, I guess it was," Lucy said, chuckling a little.

"We should do it again sometime."

"Uh…" For a second Lucy looked a little green, but then she laughed and shrugged. "You know what, maybe we should."

Smiling, Erza turned away and pushed the doors open to see…

A huge mess.

Her excitement bled away as she took in the scene. It looked like her friends had at least tried to decorate, but the streamers had been torn and several of the balloons had been popped. The presents sitting in a pile in the corner were shoddily wrapped or not wrapped at all. Worst of all was the fighting.

Most of the guild members were standing awkwardly on the sidelines, either yelling or trying to figure out how to fix the mess, but a few different brawls had started up. The one that really caught Erza's attention was Gray and Natsu's, since it was right in front of her.

"I spent hours on that!" Gray growled, dodging around Natsu's fist and punching him in the face. He'd managed to lose his shirt already, despite having been warned not to strip today.

"Not my fault you're stupid," Natsu sneered back, rubbing at his nose and aiming another hit at Gray.

"You didn't even try!"

"It's not that big of a deal. And seriously, chill out. I barely ripped it. She's not even going to notice."

"Yes she will!"

"Then fix it."

"I can't just–" Gray broke off as Natsu managed to land a strike, hitting him hard enough in the chest that he lost his balance and stumbled backwards.

Falling right into the cake on the table behind him.

Instant silence enveloped the guild.

"Oh shit," Gray breathed finally, pulling himself up and looking down in dismay at the mess of ruined cake and pink frosting coating his skin. "You _idiot_. She's going to be here any minute!"

Natsu had frozen in place as well, face going white. "We can…fix it?" he offered, although the expression on his face said anything but.

"No," Erza said coldly, "I don't think you can."

Everyone started in surprise and turned to face her, guilt and fear written across their faces. Erza was gripping the doorframe so hard that she was surprised the wood didn't splinter, fury and disappointment and hurt warring within her.

"I'm sorry," Natsu said quickly, once he'd gotten over the shock. "We can–"

"You don't need to do anything," she snapped, blinking back tears. Of fury or hurt, she didn't know. "Obviously this was just a joke to you."

"Erza," Gray said, his face twisting into a pinched expression of remorse, "I–"

"Enough."

He flinched and dropped his gaze to the ground, wincing at the globs of icing and chunks of cake littering the floor.

"I suppose I should have known better than to trust you to get things done," she told him coldly. "You didn't even manage to keep your clothes on. Not that the rest of you are any better. You knew exactly what I wanted, but I guess it wasn't important enough to matter. You couldn't even go one day without fighting.

"One day!" Her voice wavered slightly and she dropped her hands from the doorframe to clench them into fists. "All I wanted was _one day_."

"Erza," Gray tried, "we just–"

"No." She turned away and headed back out the door past Lucy. "I'm done. Congratulations, now you can just do whatever you want today, since that was what you were doing anyway."

Lucy tried to follow after her. "Erza, what if–?"

"Not right now, Lucy."

Maybe it wasn't fair to take things out on Lucy since she hadn't even been here, but Erza was just so _done_ with it all. Waving the blonde off, she stormed down the street, leaving the guild behind.

It felt like all her hopes and dreams had been shattered in one fell swoop. That might sound overdramatic, but she had just wanted things to be perfect for one day. She had planned it all out, gotten excited about it, looked forward to it. And her friends had just complained about everything and then ruined it.

It wasn't even just that things hadn't gone right, but that her friends hadn't cared enough to let her have her way for _one day_. That hurt, that they hadn't cared enough to do something that they knew meant so much to her. For them it would have just been one day of having to suck it up and do as she asked, but to her it would have meant a lot.

It hurt that it hadn't been important enough to them—that _she_ hadn't been important enough.

Now that her day was completely ruined, Erza drifted around the city, not knowing what to do with herself. She had fantasized about today every day for weeks, but not once had she imagined that she would be wandering the streets all alone, halfway between sobbing her eyes out and ripping someone's head off. She didn't even want to think about any of this birthday nonsense anymore. Better to bury it quietly and forget about it.

Not that she was having much luck with that.

Window shopping didn't seem fun, she wasn't even in the mood for strawberry cake, and seeing all the happy people around her just made her feel more bitter. Eventually she wandered to the outskirts of town instead, where she spent the next few hours 'training'. Or taking out her aggression and heartache on trees. Whatever you wanted to call it.

On the plus side, her new sword handled beautifully. On the downside, she chipped her nail polish. She had the sudden desire to scrub it all off and get rid of the evidence that this day had ever happened, but then she thought about all that fun she'd had with Lucy earlier and relented. But still, it sucked that things had started off so well and then totally crashed and burned.

Only a few hours ago, twenty-four hours seemed so short that she needed everyone to get up _right now_ so that they could get started. Now it seemed to drag on forever, like watching nail polish dry.

After a while, she gave up on her training. Her heart wasn't really in it.

She thought she was just drifting along aimlessly, but when she ended up back at the river, she was not entirely surprised. She stopped short as soon as she realized where she was heading, and scowled over at the water winding along several feet away. She didn't want to sulk at the river on her birthday.

She was just about to walk away when she caught movement out of the corner of her eye and turned to see Gray pulling himself up off the ground from where he'd been sitting against a tree. He watched her with hooded eyes, presumably trying to gauge her mood.

"Hi, Erza."

"Uh-uh." She spun on her heel and started back the way she had come. "I said I was done."

"Come on, hear me out. Five minutes won't kill you. I spent nearly an hour and a half waiting for you to show up. I don't think I can even feel my feet anymore."

Erza had the fleeting urge to laugh at that, but turned back and crossed her arms as she leveled a scowl at him. "Guess you should've stood up so your feet didn't fall asleep. Or just not bothered at all, since this clearly wasn't important to you to start with."

Gray winced and rubbed a hand across his eyes as he sighed. "Come on, look, I even put a shirt on for you. Give me five minutes?"

"Fine," she said after a moment of hesitation. "Hurry up."

"We… _I'm_ sorry," he said, his gaze sliding away. "It's not that we don't think it's important, it just… I don't know. Things got out of hand. But we really were trying to make it work."

"If you say so," Erza said noncommittally, watching Gray expressionlessly as he winced again.

"We know it was important–"

"It was just one day!" she burst out. "Maybe it doesn't seem like a big deal to you, maybe it really isn't, but everything has been so crazy lately and I just wanted one day to be perfect."

Gray stayed silent for a moment before sighing. "Erza, we wanted it to be perfect for you too. I don't think it's silly that you wanted your day to be special. The problem is that _we_ aren't perfect, and it's really hard for such imperfect people to make something perfect. But we really did try, you know. I guess we should've tried harder, because in the end it didn't work out. But even if we screwed up, is it really any better for you to be moping out here by yourself?"

"I'm not moping," Erza muttered.

"Look, we tried to fix what we could once you left. I'm sorry we didn't do better, but will you at least come back? It won't be perfect, but it's something. I think you could still have fun anyway."

"Maybe," Erza mumbled, only half convinced.

On the one hand, she knew he was right that having something not-perfect was still better than having nothing at all, and surely hanging out with her friends would be more enjoyable than moping around and writing off her birthday entirely. And sure, she could appreciate that the guild had at least tried. At the same time, she was still smarting from earlier, and it wasn't easy to forget how things should have been versus how they had actually ended up.

Gray glanced up and stared at her like she was a puzzle to be solved, but then his face cleared. "Did you know that I don't actually like strawberry cake?"

"Um, no?" She frowned at him in confusion, perplexed by the sudden non sequitur. "For one, how could you possibly not like something so delicious?"

"I don't know. I kept hoping it would grow on me, but it never has."

"And two," she continued as if he hadn't spoken, "we always get you a strawberry cake for your birthday! Why didn't you say anything?"

Gray hummed absently to himself, studying Erza with unreadable eyes. "Last year for my birthday, the cake was strawberry and I didn't really like it. Natsu managed to set half the guild on fire while lighting the candles, and Juvia then flooded the building trying to put it out. Then Natsu attacked me, you eventually whacked us both to make us stop, Lucy hit him too because he crashed into her, Cana was totally wasted and happily used the excuse to drag the rest of the guild into the brawl, and Happy dragged in half a lake's worth of fish that smelled awful. Not exactly how I would have planned things if I was looking for the perfect day."

Erza winced, suddenly remorseful as she realized that was true. She might have been upset about her birthday getting messed up, but come to think of it, Gray's had too. And…maybe so had everyone else's, in their own ways.

"Sorry," she said contritely. "I'll make sure things go better next year."

"Don't bother." One corner of his mouth twitched upwards into a half-smile. "I never said anything about the cake because I don't have a strong preference for one flavor over another, but you do. And you always get so excited picking out the cake, and I know you enjoy being the self-appointed cake-chooser for everyone's birthdays. Natsu's always having the most fun when he's fighting or wrecking things, you like disciplining us, Cana enjoys getting drunk and being a troublemaker, and even though fish are kind of gross, Happy always gives them as gifts because they're important to him.

"It might not have been perfect, but it was still a lot of fun, wasn't it? And I'd really just rather see everyone having a good time. We aren't perfect, so sometimes things get screwed up. I'm sorry we messed things up this time too, but we still want to celebrate with you. Come back and let us make things up to you."

Erza stared at him for a second and then dropped her gaze as she swallowed hard. Put that way… Well, she still would have preferred it if things had gone according to plan, but she could see why it would be premature to scrap the whole thing as a loss. She still loved her friends, and she realized that she missed them now.

And she had just yelled at them and run off.

"What kind of cake do you want next year?" she mumbled, instead of answering.

"It doesn't matter," Gray said dismissively. "That's something you care more about than I do. Come back with me."

She stayed quiet for another long moment, still stalling. "Why did they send you to talk to me? Seems like an odd choice."

"Odd?" he asked with a laugh. "Should I be offended? Nah, they didn't send me. I volunteered. I figured you'd end up here eventually, whether you meant to or not, and I felt bad about wrecking things earlier. Won't you come back, Erza?"

"I chipped my nail," Erza said absently as her gaze caught on the marred polish and she began inspecting it again.

"I'm sure Lucy can fix it for you. I mean, I think? I don't know anything about all that girly stuff. I don't know why you're stalling and trying to put me off, but you're making me nervous. Your nail polish looks very nice and I think Lucy can fix the part you chipped. Alright? Come on, we still want to have your party."

Erza winced at the mention of Lucy. "She made my nails very nice and I painted hers all ugly," she said mournfully. "I couldn't even keep the polish on the nail."

There was a long pause, and she could practically feel Gray trying to figure out what the hell was going on inside her head and how he should handle it. Then he sighed and tilted her chin up so that she was looking at him again.

"It's okay, Erza," he said quietly, searching her eyes. "Your passion has always outshone your actual artistic ability, but you don't make anything ugly because you put your heart into it. You're not going to be good at everything—you aren't perfect any more than we are. Your drawing and painting aren't always that good, you can be unnecessarily violent sometimes, you get excited about the strangest things, you can be entirely incomprehensible at times. But you know…"

He smiled and took her hand, his finger running over the place where her polish had chipped. "It's all those little imperfections that we love you for. It's okay if you're a little chipped. You're still perfect to us anyway, alright? And we really do want you to have your perfect day, so won't you give us another chance?"

Erza sniffled and wiped at her damp eyes with her other hand. "Okay," she mumbled past the lump in her throat.

Gray smiled brightly and started back up the bank, keeping one hand locked with hers as if he was afraid she might change her mind. Erza followed after him without complaint, still surreptitiously wiping at her eyes every once in a while.

"So, it's not going to be everything you wanted it to be, but we did try to fix some stuff up," Gray rambled as he tugged her through the streets. "I mean, I've been out here for a while waiting for you so I haven't seen the end result, but I was there for part of it. We accidentally wrecked some of the streamers and balloons and stuff, but some of it was salvageable. The cake was a total loss though, and it was too short notice to get another one made. We tried making one ourselves, but Natsu got his hands in it so it tastes gross and looks horrible and is probably kind of unsanitary. But I picked up a few trays of cupcakes and some candles, so… I hope you like cupcakes."

"I do."

"Good. That's good. And, uh, we tried to wrap all the presents. Natsu was an idiot and didn't even bother trying to wrap his, but I, uh, tried to fix it. But I didn't have a lot of time and wrapping is _hard_ , so… I swear mine were wrapped really well, but he tore the paper in a couple places and I didn't have time to make it perfect again because it took hours last time. But I mean, they _were_ wrapped well."

"I'm sorry I made you waste so much time on something so pointless," Erza said quietly, remembering earlier that morning when he'd said that he'd stayed up all night trying to wrap her gifts to her exacting standards.

Gray paused his nervous rambling to frown over at her. "It wasn't a waste of time, really. I mean, it seemed kind of silly to me, but it was important to you and you're important to me, so I didn't really mind even though I complained about it." He gave her a crooked grin. "I wouldn't have given up so much of my time for it if I didn't love you. I wanted it to be perfect because I knew that _you_ wanted it to be perfect. Like I said, we really did want to give you the perfect day, even if we stumbled at the end there."

Erza swallowed hard and looked down at her feet. "Yeah… Thank you. I know I was upset, but I do appreciate how hard you guys tried."

"It's alright. We understand why you were unhappy."

Gray stopped suddenly and Erza darted a glance upwards, noticing that they had reached the guild. Gray eyed her anxiously as he hesitated outside the doors.

"Moment of truth," he said with a nervous chuckle.

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry it didn't turn out like you wanted it to, but happy birthday, Erza."

Despite herself, Erza flashed him a genuine smile. "Thanks."

He smiled back and pushed open the doors. The mages milling about inside immediately froze and looked over, expressions twisting anxiously as they spotted Erza.

"Happy birthday!" they said, more or less in unison. Less, to be fair. No one was actually in sync with each other.

Erza looked around the hall slowly. The 'happy birthday' banner had been torn and hastily fixed with tape, the surviving streamers looked a little bedraggled and shredded, and there were far fewer balloons than there should have been. The pile of presents in the corner was sloppily wrapped, the pink monstrosity of a cake looked absolutely hideous, and the cupcakes and candles sitting in front of it weren't exactly how she had envisioned her birthday cake being.

Everyone watched her nervously, waiting with bated breath to see if they'd done enough to satisfy her or if she was going to storm out again. Glancing back, she saw the same apprehension reflected in Gray's dark eyes. It occurred to her that they weren't worried because they were afraid of being yelled at, but because they genuinely wanted her to have a good day and felt bad about what had happened earlier.

And they really had tried to do things right the first time around, and to fix things after it all went wrong. The results were rather subpar, but they had tried for her.

"It's perfect," she said finally, with a small smile.

And she meant it.

* * *

 **Note: Gray in the morning is totally me in the morning lol Also, Erza can be adorable when she gets super excited and determined about the randomest things. So sure, it got a little hurt/comfort at the end, but I need a little substance to my stories aside from just humor. Sorry :)**

 **emmahoshi: Ha ha, I like seeing Erza's more serious side subverted by her ditzy, obsessive side occasionally. Like when she got all excited over setting up her first picnic or when the team put on that play she got obsessed with. I'm not honestly that big on birthdays either—I just want my cake, really XD And group projects were always the worst. I'm one of those people who likes to have things planned out ahead of time so that I know what to expect, and group projects made me extremely jaded. I like fresh strawberries (and fruit in general) better than desserts using it. Baked fruit is 50-50 for me. My motto is 'when in doubt, go with chocolate' XD Sorry about the cake :P And thanks lol**

* * *

 **I hope you're sufficiently grateful, sis. No one writes me stories for _my_ birthday. But still...**

 _ **Roses are red,**_

 _ **Violets are blue,**_

 _ **I wouldn't have given up five days of my time**_

 _ **If I didn't love you.**_

 **I hope you have a picture-perfect birthday, even if it's maybe not in the way you expect :)**

 **(Also, spoiler alert: We're putting strawberries on your cake. You're welcome. Channel your inner Erza XD)**


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